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When the U.S. Navy scrapped its first battleship with the name U.S.S. San Francisco in 1939, no one ever thought that 75 years later, one of its lifeboats would be restored to a stunning new grandeur by a 65-year-old auto mechanic named Ray in Nevada County.

“It was just something different than cars,” said Ray Hugenberger, proprietor since 1985 of antique-styled Ray’s Auto in unincorporated Grass Valley. “I’ve been working on cars a long time.”

After five months and more than 300 hours of detailed restoration work and metal parts fabrication, Hugenberger, who is known to drive around town in his 1930 Model A tow truck, plans to launch the antique 18-foot lifeboat at Rollins Lake a week from Saturday.

It is likely one of the only remnants of the original circa-1890 U.S.S. San Francisco, the first of three U.S. Navy battleships to bear that name.

“Then I’m going to take it (to) Tahoe,” Hugenberger said. “I’m just going to play around with it.”

The lifeboat, or ship-to-shore vessel, was just a shallow metal shell with a tiller and not much else when Hugenberger obtained it earlier this year from a high school friend in the Bay Area.

It is pictured in old photos and drawings of the U.S.S. San Francisco as being tied in midship, ready for deployment in an emergency.

Hugenberger, assisted by an assortment of friends and bystanders, raised the sides, added a Model A transmission and a marine engine from a friend in Nevada County and fabricated himself a steering wheel, helm and rudder. The steering column is topped off with an off-the-shelf antique brass compass.

“I made the sides higher so that people sitting in the seats would have something to lean on,” he said.

Hugenberger painted the outside white, and then fabricated metal poles to hold a white wooden canopy, which he also made.

“It looks like the African Queen,” said one of the workers, after the canopy was installed on Thursday.

Jack Perry, a former U.S. Navy sailor, was hired by Hugenberger three weeks ago to add some finishing touches.